¢ADDING A MOUSE¢¢by Kevin Cooke¢¢Part 5¢¢¢ Hello again and welcome to the fifth part of ADDING A MOUSE. This time I will be taking a look at two public domain titles that can be used to increase you mouse enjoyment. The first one is MULTI-MOUSE.¢¢ Multi-Mouse allows you to write a program using specially added commands, and then change the input device (keyboard, mouse, joystick or trackball) by simply loading in the appropriate driver. This eliminates the need to completely change your program whenever you want to control it with a different device.¢¢ The first time I used Multi-Mouse (MM from now on) I was quite excited. At last I could program for mouse control in BASIC. Then I discovered Turbo BASIC and found that MM didn't work with it. Now, an updated version of MM has changed that. Programs are supplied to make it compatible with Turbo BASIC, to change it's memory location and to demonstrate how MM works. There are also sufficient doc files to ensure that you have no problems using it.¢¢ I really like MM. It's simplicity is it's strong point. Providing you can program in BASIC you shouldn't have any problems. If you can't program in BASIC then MM could provide the incentive to learn.¢¢ Also on the disk is the PIG DEMO. This demonstrates the Atari's fine scrolling, character graphics and page flipping features. It made me laugh the first time I loaded it and rounds off the disk nicely!¢¢ The next disk I will look at is BOARD GAMES. This is a collection of three board games which have been written to work with MM. This means that you have a choice of input devices to control the pointer with. Incidentally, the author of these games, Simon Trew, also wrote the MM program itself.¢¢ The first game is CATCH88. This is played on an 8x8 chess-type board. The game starts off with each square containing a white counter. The computer then jumbles them up and it is up to you to turn them all white again.¢¢ To turn them white you have to click on any of the counters. That one, and the ones that form the columns crossing it, then change colour. Believe me, it will be a long time before you manage to do this - try not to cry when the computer does it in only a few seconds!¢¢ Overall, this game is fairly fun but much too hard for me. Puzzle fans are sure to enjoy it though!¢¢ The next game is KNIGHT QUEST. Again, this is played on a chess-type board, but this time the object is to fill up every square with a knight.¢¢ You start off with your knight positioned on the board (either in a position chosen by yourself or the computer) and you must keep moving it until it has been on every square of the board. The only moves you can make are two sqaures vertically and one horizontally or two horizontally and one vertically. Your only other limit is that you can't land on the same square twice.¢¢ Features include an action replay (where the computer shows you every move you have made) and an option to backtrack through as many moves as you wish.¢¢ This game is great fun. I can't complete this one either but I will keep trying!¢¢ The final game is OTHELLO. This is my favourite on the disk. The game still revolves around the 8x8 board but this time you play against the computer. The object of this game is to "sandwich" your opponents pieces between two of your own. The game ends when either you can no longer make an acceptable move or the board is full. The player with the most pieces of their colour is the overall winner.¢¢ Again, this is VERY addictive and one that I CAN beat the computer at! Brilliant, and well worth the tiny price.¢¢¢- The Multi-Mouse disk is available as an ARCed file on AIM September 1992 (NOSAUG PD Disk AIM17).¢- The Turbo BASIC modification is available from the author.¢- The Board Games disk is available as an ARCed file on AIM June 1992 (NOSAUG PD Disk AIM14).¢¢¢¢MOUSE TRIVIA¢¢ Not really anything about mice this time - I just thought I'd point out that this is the second time I've had to write this article. You see, the first time around I finished everything off, saved it and then started writing the next part. Unfortunately, I used the same filename for it, and so lost my original piece with no way of getting it back. I love computers!¢
